


The Twist

by Haicrescendo



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everything is terrible, F/M, Gen, don’t read fanfic if you don’t like spoilers, halp, hurt/comfort to save me from the dumpster fire of this past episode, jaime lannister is not a fuckboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 15:30:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18813739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: Jaime stares into the hearth with a choice to make. This time, he makes the right one.





	The Twist

It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so dire.

Jaime stares into the fire and doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there with his boots on. Brienne’s long past talking to him when he gets like this and sleeps underneath the pile of furs atop the bed that Sansa Stark has taken pains to make sure she can fit in. It’s not entirely roomy enough for two grown people but Jaime’s always been a tactile sleeper anyway.

Despite the cold wind slipping through the inevitable cracks in the door, the walls, the windows— so damned cold all the damned time, the fire crackling merrily in the hearth is nearly too warm on his face.

Jaime looks back to Brienne, comfortable and trusting enough to sleep when he does not.

He stares back into the fire.

There’s a part of him that screams and cries,  _ how dare you, how dare you _ , knowing that in days Cersei will die and he’ll be here surrounded by snow and ice and a warm body in his bed, and she’ll be there. Alone. Without him. Will she be afraid, alone? Will she fight? Jaime stares at his boots, laced up. All he has to do is walk out and run. All he has to do is leave and find out. And if she can’t be convinced to stop, he’ll stop her himself.

He’s been running to Cersei his whole life, and for the first time he knows what it’s like to run  _ from  _ her. But somehow, despite it all, there’s a part that chafes and strains against the order to hold and be still and _ don’t walk out that door _ .

Jaime stares at his boots and the fireplace until a noise from bed snaps him out of it. Brienne’s rolled over and her hand pats the mattress where he’d normally be laying. She continues to sleep but it’s clear what she’s searching for. Jaime can’t hold back the uptick of his lips at the innocence of the gesture. Straightforward and forthright, just like Brienne.

Jaime unlaces his boots and kicks them off as quietly as he can before sidling back to bed, sliding in underneath the furs. He’s not used to sharing a bed with anyone; all his trysts with Cersei were rushed and hurried especially after her marriage, and the feeling of another body wrapped around him in bed feels foreign and strange. But not unpleasant, he notes, not unpleasant at all. It feels comfortable to curl around Brienne or to let her curl around him, and he wouldn’t have expected her to be so prone to cuddling, but perhaps the cold just does that to people. 

At the feeling of his body next to her, Brienne lets out a sighing breath and wraps herself around him more confidently than she does when she’s awake, slinging an arm over Jaime’s hip and burying her nose in the back of his neck. 

He feels warm, safe, secure, and so fucking  _ sad _ .

He can’t walk out on this, though. Not even for Cersei.

That night, Jaime dreams of another future where he doesn’t take off his boots, where he leaves Brienne crying in Winterfell (crying, _ for him _ , and Jaime’s disgusted with himself even though he didn’t actually do it) and he watches the world go to shit. He watches his brother throw away the last dregs of the Dragon Queen’s trust by freeing him to go do something monumentally stupid. King’s Landing burns and he throws away everything that’s important to him, and he fails anyway. He dreams that they die together and instead of rightfully facing justice the way they should. The roof caves in and that’s it. 

Jaime Lannister dies for nothing.

And then he wakes, breathing hard and shooting up in bed the way he used to back before he was able to push away his memories of the Mad King. Despite the cold in the air, sweat and goosebumps prickle his skin and it takes him a moment to get his bearings and realize that he’s here, in Winterfell.

Not King’s Landing. 

Not buried under a mountain of rock with someone he walked away from.

Jaime’s tried to quiet his breathing but it’s too late; next to him Brienne shifts and blinks  into wakefulness. She takes in the tension of his body and something in his face must tell her something, because it’s not a moment later that she’s sitting up next to him and pulling him in close until his nose brushes the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Jaime takes in a deep breath and hates that it’s a comfort, that he can’t help but take what she offers without question because he needs it so damn badly that he can’t even think properly until he’s able to tuck himself into the spaces she leaves for him.

She doesn’t say anything for a long while and for once in his life Jaime has nothing to say. It’d be easy to mutter something about the white walkers— they’re a common fixture in both of their nightmares these days, but he hesitates to lie to her. Not when he came so close to doing something worse to her than lying. Eventually they lay back down and Jaime feels his loose pieces begin to stabilize under her hands rubbing gentle circles on the back of his head.

“...do you want to talk to me about it?” She finally mumbles when it’s clear he’s not going to offer anything himself. Brienne’s still so awkward, he thinks, and can’t help but find it charming. Awkward and honest, and he can finally appreciate it properly.

“I almost did something very, very stupid,” Jaime admits after some deliberation. “It would have been a mistake.”

Brienne doesn’t ask what he almost did even though he knows she wants to. He can feel how badly she wants to by the way her rhythm stutters and by the breath she holds somewhere in her gut. He doesn’t know when he began to know her like this.

“You, do something stupid?” She eventually replies, “Will wonders never cease?” The words could have cut but they’re spoken with gentleness; Brienne has every tool at her disposal to be cruel but she chooses kindness instead.

Jaime lets out a snort of a laugh that chokes and turns, horribly, into a sob that he tries unsuccessfully to smother into Brienne’s shoulder. He knows that the future he dreamed of didn’t happen but his heart feels like it did, and he can’t handle it. Startled, Brienne makes a shushing noise and starts up her stroking again, until Jaime’s melted against her and he can’t feel anything but her hands on him. If he could spend his entire life just in this moment, it would be more grace than he ever could have asked for. Certainly more grace than he deserves.

It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so dire.

“I know she has to die,” Jaime whispers after what feels like an eternity. For a moment he thinks that Brienne’s gone to sleep but when he speaks she goes tense and quiet. “I know there’s no other way. She won’t give up the throne until she’s dead, even if she’s nothing to rule over.” And Jaime knows that to his core. Cersei might run to save herself but she’ll never surrender.

Jaime loves her and hates her and wishes that it hasn’t come to this, but it has and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s already seen what can happens if he does. He won’t make those mistakes.

There are a lot of things that Brienne could say and he’d appreciate most of them for the spirit of comfort they were offered in, but he’s so embarrassingly grateful that all she says is,

“I know.”


End file.
